The filling of prescriptions by automated systems has been implemented in many pharmacy practice settings to improve drug distribution, control inventory, reduce labor and decrease medication errors (See, e.g., “Implementation and evaluation of an automated dispensing system,” Am. J. Health-Syst Pharm. 1995, 52:823-8; “Medication cart-filling time, accuracy, and cost with an automated dispensing system,” Am. J. Hosp. Pharm. 1994; 51:1193-6). Despite these benefits, and contrary to expectations, studies have demonstrated that the number of prescription filling errors tends to increase with the implementation of automated systems.
In 2012 all automatically filled prescriptions were required to undergo a process known as Full Visual Verification (FVV). This process requires a pharmacist to pour the contents of each automatically filled prescription vial onto a counting tray to ensure product consistency. Upon verification that a prescription contains the correct type and number of pills, the pharmacist transfers the contents of the counting tray back into the prescription vial. The high volume of prescriptions filled in a typical pharmacy each day often requires the pharmacists to perform FVV for multiple automatically filled prescriptions in sequence. The highly repetitive process of transferring large numbers of pills to and from their respective containers naturally lends itself to errors. One such error, with potentially life threatening consequences, is commingling of medications due to the inadvertent transfer of stray pill(s) from one prescription vial to another. Structural features of the pill tray itself, such as crevices in which pills become temporarily lodged and/or blind spots that limit the pharmacist's ability to identify stray pills, are a significant factor in these comingling events. In view of the unlimited variety of pill sizes, colors and shapes (e.g., round, oblong, oval, elliptical, square, cylindrical, rectangular, diamond-shaped, cone-shaped triangular, crescent-shaped, trapezoidal, pentagonal, hexagonal, heptagonal, octagonal etc.) even minor surface disruptions within a pill tray represent potential areas in which a pill may become lodged. What is needed is an improved pill tray that allows the pharmacists to verify the accuracy and consistency of prescription contents in a safe and efficient manner.